Sunday Independent Stupid Statement of the Week December 9, 2012

Eoghan Harris has the answers to Fianna Fáil’s dilemma in a week when the Sindo is massively disappointed that Fianna Fáil did not make more gains from slaughtering the government over the budget.

Be clear. I do not believe this country is divided into public and private sector. It’s divided between those who have to do panicky tots after this Budget and those who don’t. You can be sure that cabinet ministers and senior public servants around the €100,000 mark aren’t doing panicky tots.

Fianna Fail’s first task is to figure out where the class politics of the lower-paid public sector and that of the majority private sector coincide. An honest accounting means ending its lethal love affair with the Croke Park class.

A classic Harris statement – apparently he hasn’t spent the last few years saying exactly that the south was divided into public and private sector (also known as Moby Dick), and apparently he still believes in the importance of class.

All the evidence shows that to stimulate growth and reduce debt, budgets should focus solely on cutting spending and on the most wasteful spending of all.

Marc Coleman continues his crusade against reality; there are none so blind as those who refuse to see.

Of course, it’s far too simplistic to say “a similarly sized public sector to the rest of the UK” when there are such massive regional variations in the size of the public sector. For example, Scotland by some figures has a bigger public sector than NI. The north-east of England is another example.

And, of course, the question of how dependent the private sector is on public sector spending, subsidies, tax relief etc is another issue altogether that tends to get ignored in such discussions.

But even if the NI rate was to drop down to equal that of the next highest region in the UK, their unemployment rate would still likely jump above that found in the Republic (due to the knock-on impact on private sector demand).

So the distorting effect of the UK government subvention can’t be ignored in any economic comparison of the NI situation versus the Republic. If the Republic was to receive a subvention from say the EU equal to 20% of GDP, we’d be on the pigs back.

It’s unfortunate that Harris doesn’t follow through on his logic about the conflation of interests between lower-paid public and private sector workers. Why would only the highest paid public sector workers (>E100) be happy with the Budget. If they’re happy, surely those in the private sector in the same income range (of whom there are far more) would equally be happy. And if you’re serious about addressing inequality, then surely the wealthiest – in both the private and public sectors – should be targeted equally.

But no, it’s back to the same old Croke Park blah blah blah, as if the Agreement relates only to the most senior public servants.

“the refusal even to consider negative outcomes—like mortgage defaults—contributed directly to the current economic crisis.

With the mythbusting powers for which she is acclaimed, Ehrenreich exposes the downside of America’s penchant for positive thinking: On a personal level, it leads to self-blame and a morbid preoccupation with stamping out “negative” thoughts. On a national level, it’s brought us an era of irrational optimism resulting in disaster. This is Ehrenreich at her provocative best—poking holes in conventional wisdom and faux science, and ending with a call for existential clarity and courage.”http://www.barbaraehrenreich.com/brightsided.htm

The ‘Happiness Industry’ has invaded the academy too, Martin Seligman, being one of its main exponents. His latest book is called ‘Flourish’. Maureen Gaffney’s latest is called ‘Flourishing’.
Perhaps ‘How to Flourish in a time of Austerity’ would be a better title. And there’s also ‘enter with
flourish….

Only the severely deluded will deny that the govt. is pursuing a pro-unemployment, deflationary fiscal policy. Even Mr. Snip Nua gets it.
‘The Department of Finance have assumed that national output will grow 1.5 per cent next year, 2.5 per cent in 2014 and 2.9 per cent in 2015. If this pattern actually emerges, Ireland will be doing better than other European countries, despite the huge public and private debt overhang, crippled banks, weak competitive position and the deflationary impact of domestic policy.’ -Colm McCarthyhttp://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/colm-mccarthy-budget-overshoot-is-on-cards-as-is-a-dreaded-second-bailout-3319727.html

‘We are all Keynesians now’,-again. Except for Marc Coleman and Angela Merkel.

Hard to know how much credence to give to any of it: it talks about a ginger group of ‘hardcore Labour’ TDs but also throws random quotes from John Whelan and Dominic Hannigan into the mix, neither of whom have been in the party a wet weekend. With regard to your last question, i would say, without any inside knowledge, the answer is certainly ‘no’